Category Archives: Urban Planning

Architecture, Education, Essay, Philosophy, Photography, Professional, Urban Planning

PHOTO ESSAY | Downtown Springfield IL

God bless, historic downtown Springfield, Illinois… they are trying, they really are. Unfortunately, for every smart decision to promote vibrant urbanism, you can find another decision (or indecision) holding things back. The most important and destructive is the continual adherence to a one-way traffic system that has only one purpose: moving vehicles as quickly as possible through downtown. It is especially mind-boggling considering the large numbers of people (including school groups) visiting the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Historic downtown Springfield is vibrant urbanism waiting to happen, trapped in its cage so automobiles can pass through quickly while only paying the minimal, necessary attention to pedestrians.

Historic Union Station and Union Station Plaza in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Historic Union Square (to left) and Museum Parking Garage (to right) along East Madison Street in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).

Another questionable design choice: locating a ‘dead’ facade parking garage across the street from beautiful, historic Union Station (now an accessory structure to the Lincoln Museum), thus creating an urban void absent of any active frontages. The parking garage was obviously built for the convenience of people visiting the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum located one block away but does nothing for the street life along this one-way, ‘rat run’ segment of East Madison Street. The street trees seem like an apologetic, after-the-fact attempt to hide this failure of urban design and planning from citizens and visitors alike.

Historic Union Station and Union Station Plaza from the corner of Sixth Street and East Jefferson Street in downtown Springfield (Photograph: Mark David Major).

In the above photograph, you can see how much street width is dedicated to moving cars through the one-way street system in downtown Springfield and the amount of pavement pedestrians have to overcome to cross a street even though there is plenty of room for landscaped medians, enhanced pedestrian crosswalks, and on-street parking with a 20-25 mph speed limit to efficiently move (instead of stop-and-start) the traffic… perhaps, even the elimination of some stop lights using the design principles of shared space.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library (foreground) and Museum (background) at East Jefferson Street (center) and Sixth Street in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).

The HOK design of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is O.K. (not great, not awful, hardly objectionable) though the 2nd floor structural crossover of East Jefferson Street wouldn’t be necessary at all with traffic calming, generally in historic downtown Springfield and, specifically, on this segment of East Jefferson Street so people could pass freely from one ground level entrance to the other using the street without having to wait for the crosswalk lights to change.

View east along East Adams Street from Sixth Street in downtown Springfield, Illinois. The high-rise Modernist building in the background was originally constructed in 1973 as Forum 30 but is now the Wyndham Springfield City Centre Hotel (Photograph: Mark David Major).
View south down Sixth Street from the pedestrianized segment of East Adams Street in front of the Old State Capitol in downtown Springfield, Illinois. The historic Lincoln-Herndon Law Office building is located to the right (Photograph: Mark David Major).
View northwest across Old State Capitol grounds from the pedestrianized segment of East Adams Street with the historic Myers Brothers Building in the background in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).
View east down the pedestrianized segment of East Adams Street with Old State Capitol to the left in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).
View west down East Adams Street from the the pedestrianized segment of that street and 5th Street in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).
View east down the pedestrianized segment of East Adams Street with historic shop frontages located to the right including the Feed Store and the National Museum of the Korean War in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).
View south down Sixth Street from East Adams Street showing the retention of historic buildings (including Lincoln-Herndon Law Office to the right) and the flow of vehicles down this one-way traffic corridor. Off-street parking is allowed along this segment of Sixth Street in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).
View west down the pedestrianized segment of East Adams Street with historic shop frontages located to the left such as the Feed Store and the National Museum of the Korean War and the Old State Capitol to the right in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Historic Lincoln-Herndon Law Office building at the corner of Sixth Street and East Adams Street in downtown Springfield, Illinois (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Share the knowledge!
Share
Architecture, Books, Education, Housing, Professional, Review, Urban Patterns, Urban Planning

FROM THE VAULT | Bourgeois Utopias | Robert Fishman

FROM THE VAULT | Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia by Robert Fishman
Review by Dr.  Mark David Major, AICP, CNU-A, The Outlaw Urbanist contributor

I’ve been an admirer of historian Robert Fishman ever since reading Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century (MIT Press, 1982) in the early 90s but especially after hearing him speak at CNU20 in West Palm Beach, FL in 2012. Given this, I was a naturally excited to read this book when I came across it many years after its publication. However, I have to begrudgingly admit I was mostly underwhelmed by Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia (Basic Books, 1987). Partially, this is a matter of timing. When Fishman wrote and published this book in the late 1980s, it seemed like the cumulative apex of suburban expansion and urban decline in the United States. In hindsight, Fishman’s history of suburbia come across as a dated, unconditional surrender to what must have seemed to many people at the time as the inevitable (despite the ‘fall’ mentioned in book’s title). Of course, we now realize there was still a significant part of the story waiting to play out over the subsequent three decades (see New Urbanism/Smart Growth, collapse of the mortgage bond market, and 2008 Financial Crisis).

However, it is not all a matter of timing. Fishman is so determined to fit his subject into the thematic structure began in Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century that he tends to cast aside any evidence contrary to his central thesis, especially when it comes to the American experience of suburbia. For example, you will not find the phrases ‘exclusionary zoning’ or ‘restrictive covenants’ anywhere in Bourgeois Utopias, which seems like an odd oversight for a purported history of suburbia. Fishman also oddly ignores ample evidence in the historical record (as well as John Reps’ seminal histories The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning in the United States and Cities of the American West: A History of Frontier Urban Planning) that there were, in fact, only a few examples of the modern American suburb type (Llewellyn Park, New Jersey and Frederick Law Olmsted’s Riverside, Illinois being the most obvious 19th century forerunners) before World War II because the regular grid dominated in American land speculation activities until the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.

Riverside, Illinois (Photo: Wikipedia).

This creates a problem because Fishman has to, more or less, cast aside the narrow, formal definition of suburbia he adopts at the start of the book when discussing early suburbs in London and Manchester, England  for a much looser definition (basically, any single family home with front yard setbacks) when approaching the American experience, especially in Los Angeles. In fact, Fishman’s entire chapter on Los Angeles reads as a regurgitation of Reyner Banham’s arguments in Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971) so both have the same flaws in underestimating the power of the urban grid. It is also another case in bad timing since Mike Davis’ City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles was published only a few years later in 1990. Davis’ book has its own flaws but it is an invaluable resource for understanding the historical development of urban form in Los Angeles including the role of water pilfering in that city as well as the insidious role of the automobile industry in the Red Car’s demise.

By far, the best and most compelling part of Bourgeois Utopias is Fishman’s research on early suburbs in England during 18th and 19th century and Olmsted’s mid-19th century plan for Riverside, Illinois (basically, pages 1-148). Indeed, any reader should be able to sense the author’s greater interest in these pre-20th century examples compared to the amalgamated cancer of 20th century suburbanization in the United States, when it seems as if Fishman is trying to ‘run out the clock’ on the book. In fact, if Fishman wasn’t so determined to ambitiously fit this topic into the ‘utopia’ theme, he might have been better served to limit his historical research to these pre-20th century examples. Fishman astutely identifies the changing nature of family related to longer life expectancy during the 18th and 19th century in England as the social origins for suburbia. Fishman briefly mentions life expectancy (which seems far more important than the words given in this book) before devoting most of his time to the evolution of familial relations in the workplace and/or home. Fishman also makes an important, useful distinction between the productive and consumptive suburb that has broader implications than spelled out in the book. It is fascinating research, which alone makes the book worth the effort. In the end, though, there are some good parts (Anglo examples) and some head-scratching parts (American examples) in Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia so the book deserves, at best, only a 3-star rating.

Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia
by Robert Fishman
Basic Books, 1987
Paperback, 272 pages, English
ISBN-10: 0465007473
ISBN-13: 978-0465007479

You can purchase Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia from Amazon here.

From the Vault is a series from the Outlaw Urbanist in which we review art, architectural and urban design texts, with an emphasis on the obscure and forgotten, found in second-hand bookstores.

Share the knowledge!
Share
Architecture, Essay, Photography, Urban Planning

Photo Essay | Central West End in Saint Louis

Large swathes of St. Louis that are downright depressing from the point of view of vibrant urbanism. By now, most everyone has heard about the racial problems in Ferguson, one of the earliest examples of post-war, white flight suburban sprawl in the city now populated by economically vulnerable populations; most likely heralding the start of the ‘ghettoization’ period for sprawl’s reputation in the United States. However, Federal, State and local redevelopment, planning, and housing policy has relentlessly decimated once-vibrant North St. Louis and East St. Louis, Illinois since World War II to the point where one might mistakenly think these areas were long-ago victims of a Soviet nuclear strike (no, these are self-inflicted wounds). Unfortunately, the same scenario is playing out for large areas of South St. Louis as well over the last twenty years.

However, there are still some pockets of vibrant urbanism on display in St. Louis, which gives the city something to build upon if leaders, professionals and others will only pause to look at those places as models for a sustainable future. One of these vibrant neighborhoods is the Central West End, which stretches from Midtown’s western edge to Union Boulevard, bordering on Forest Park, north to Delmar Blvd. and south to Clayton Ave. The Central West End includes an array of cultural institutions including the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis associated with St. Louis University. The commercial district is located mainly along Euclid Avenue and a lot of the urban activity in the area is supported by faculty, medical staff, and students of Washington University and St. Louis University. Playwright Tennessee Williams, beat writer William S. Burroughs, and poet T.S. Elliot grew up/lived in the neighborhood. The Central West End is often mistaken for the setting of the classic 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis starring Judy Garland.

Central West End in St. Louis from 1000m (Source: Google Earth).
Detail of sidewalk cafe in Maryland Plaza at the corner of North Euclid Ave. and Maryland Ave. in the Central West End (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Maryland Plaza at the corner of North Euclid Ave. and Maryland Ave. in the Central West End (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Active sidewalks along Euclid Ave. in the Central West End (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Sidewalk cafes about an hour before lunchtime during the weekday along Maryland Ave. in the Central West End (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Active sidewalks along North Euclid Ave. in the Central West End (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Interesting (aka bizarre) use of bathroom tiles on exterior facade of historic commercial building along North. Euclid Ave. in the Central West End (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Quiet residential streets as you turn the corner off Euclid Ave. in the Central West End (Photograph: Mark David Major).

Share the knowledge!
Share
Architecture, Books, Mark David Major, Philosophy, Professional, Review, Urban Planning

BOOK REVIEW | Dead End by Benjamin Ross

BOOK REVIEW | Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism by Benjamin Ross
Review by Dr. Mark David Major, AICP, CNU-A, The Outlaw Urbanist contributor

The first half of Benjamin Ross’ Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism (2014, Oxford University Press) is a majestic masterpiece of objective, clear, and concise diagnosis about the political, economic, and social origins of suburban sprawl in the United States with particular emphasis on the legal and regulatory pillars (restrictive covenants and exclusionary zoning ) perpetuating  suburban sprawl to this day. It is required reading for anyone interested in the seemingly intractable problems of suburban sprawl we face today in building a more sustainable future for our cities. Chapters 1-10 (first 138 pages) of Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism warrants a five-star plus rating alone.

However, Ross’ book becomes more problematic with the transition from diagnosis to prescription, beginning with an abrupt change in tone in Chapter 11. This chapter titled “Backlash from the Right” is, in particular, so politically strident that it reads as if the staff of Harry Reid’s Senate office wrote the text (the political left’s favorite boogeymen, the Koch Brothers, are even mentioned); or perhaps, the text of this chapter sprouted wholesale like Athena from the “vast right wing conspiracy” imaginings of Hillary Clinton’s head. This is unfortunate. In the second half of the book, Ross starts to squander most – if not all – of the trust he earned with readers during the exemplary first half of the book. It is doubly unfortunate because: first, it is done solely in the service of political dogma as Ross unconvincingly attempts to co-opt Smart Growth as a wedge issue for the political left in the United States; and second, it unnecessarily alienates ‘natural’ allies on the conservative and libertarian right sympathetic to Ross’ arguments for strong cities and good urbanism.

In the process, Ross tends to ignore or paper over blatant contradictions littering the philosophy of the political left in the United States when it comes to cities. Of course, this is a common Baby Boomer leftist tactic of absolving their generation for the collective disaster they’ve helped to create over the last half-century by confusing ideology for argument (and hoping no one will notice there’s a difference). For example, if you want to see what the policies of the political left look like after three-quarters of a century of dominance, then look no further than East St. Louis, Illinois. What has happened to that once vibrant city is absolutely criminal; literally so since several state and city Democratic officials and staffers have been sent to jail for corruption for decades.

During the second half of Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism, Ross also promotes the classic Smart Growth fallacy that public rail transit is the ‘magic bullet’ for reviving our cities. Indeed, public rail transit is important but too often Ross – like many others – comes across as unconsciously applying Harris and Ullman’s multi-nuclei model of city growth, which conveniently holds almost any function (in this case, rail stations/lines) can be randomly inserted almost anywhere in the fabric of a city without repercussions as long as land uses are ‘compatible.’ Of course, this is the ex post facto theoretical underpinning for the very ideas of Euclidean zoning and the common umbrella providing regulatory cover for all sorts of disastrous decisions in the name of “economic development.”

This is a potentially dangerous self-delusion shared by many in the Smart Growth movement. For example, what Ross attributes as the cause for the failure of some rail stations (lack of walkable, urban development around these stations due to the over-provision of space for ‘park and ride’ lots in catering to the automobile) is often really a symptom. The real disease is these stations were put in the wrong location in the first place due to local opposition, regulatory convenience, and/or political cowardice (i.e. that’s where the land was available). There is an inherent danger in approaching pubic rail transit as a cure-all panacea for the city’s problems. If our leaders, planners, and engineers take shortcuts in the planning, design, and locating of rail lines/stations, then we leave the fate of our cities to happenstance. It is far too important of an issue to approach in such a cavalier manner, as some Smart Growth advocates appear so inclined.

In a general sense, this is not really different from the arguments made in Dead End but, specifically, it is an important distinction that is glossed over or not properly understood when drilling down into the crucial details of Ross’ prescriptions. That being said, there are some interesting tidbits and ideas in the ‘prescription phase’ of Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism. However, the reader has to be extremely careful about filtering out Ross’ political agenda from the more important morsels. For example, Ross correctly points out Americans’ disdain for buses is rooted in social status. However, he fails to point out – or perhaps even realize – that this peculiar American attitude is indoctrinated from childhood due to the expansive busing of kids to school in the United States (e.g.. only the poor and unpopular kids take the bus). In order to change this attitude, you have to radically change public education policies, something contrary to the invested interests of the political left. In fact, Ross has very little to say about schools, which seems like an odd oversight.

Too often, Ross’s prescription for building coalitions comes across as the same, old political activism of the counter-culture Baby Boomers that doesn’t really rise above the level of gathering everyone around the campfire and singing “Kumbaya, My Lord” (absent the “My Lord” part in the interests of political correctness). In the end, this suggests Ross has a well-grounded understanding about the historical, political and social impact of legal and regulatory instruments at work in our cities (exemplified by the first half of this book) but only a superficial idea about the design and function of cities and movement networks (including streets and rail) as witnessed by the lackluster second half, which is barely worth a two-star rating. Because of these strengths and weaknesses, Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism is a four-star book in its entirety but you might be better served by reading the first half of the book, ignoring the second half, and having the courage to chart your own path in the fight for better cities.

Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism
by Benjamin Ross
Hardcover, English, 256 pages
New York: Oxford University Press (May 2, 2014)
ISBN-10: 0199360146
ISBN-13: 978-0199360147

Available for purchase from Amazon here.

Share the knowledge!
Share
Architecture, Essay, Photography, Urban Planning

PHOTO ESSAY | The Hill in Saint Louis

Large swathes of St. Louis are downright depressing from the point of view of vibrant urbanism. By now, most everyone has heard about the racial problems in Ferguson, one of the earliest examples of post-war, white flight suburban sprawl in the city now populated by economically vulnerable populations; most likely heralding the beginning of the ‘ghettoization period’ for sprawl’s reputation in the United States. However, Federal, State and local redevelopment, planning, and housing policy has relentlessly decimated once-vibrant North St. Louis and East St. Louis, Illinois since World War II to the point where one might mistakenly think these areas were long-ago victims of a Soviet nuclear strike (no, these are self-inflicted wounds). Unfortunately, the same scenario has been playing out for large areas of South St. Louis over the last twenty years as well.

Fire hydrants flagged with the colors of the Italian flag on The Hill in St. Louis (Source: Wikipedia).

However, there are still some pockets of vibrant urbanism on display in St. Louis, which gives the city something to build upon if its leaders, professionals and citizens will only pause to look at those places as models for a sustainable future. One of these vibrant neighborhoods is The Hill located on the highest point in the city (formerly known as the St. Louis Hill) south of Forest Park. The official boundaries of The Hill are Manchester Avenue to the north, Columbia and Southwest Avenue to the South, South Kingshighway to the east, and Hampton Avenue to the west. For decades, the majority of residents on The Hill have been Italian Americans so the area is known for its many Italian businesses, restaurants (yes, the food is unbelievably good), and notable residents. This includes Yogi Berra, a Hall of Fame member of the New York Yankees during their 50s baseball dynasty known for his ‘Yogi-isms’ such as “It’s déjà vu all over again”, and Joe Garagiola, a Hall of Fame baseball broadcaster and rookie catcher for the  St. Louis Cardinals World Series championship team in 1946.

The Hill neighborhood, St. Louis satellite view from 1000m (Source: Google Earth).
Daggett Ave. and Macklind Ave. with Gioia’s Deli on the corner across from Berra Park (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Looking up Edwards St. to the formerly named St. Louis Hill on The Hill in St. Louis (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Eovaldi’s Deli (with historical sign for “Leo Oldani MFGRS Italian Salami” still on the facade) on the corner of Bischoff Ave. and Edwards St. across the street from Mama’s on the Hill Restaurant (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Rows of Midwestern brick vernacular homes on small lots along Wilson Ave. on The Hill in St. Louis (Photograph: Mark David Major).
Midwestern vernacular homes on small lots along Bischoff Ave. n The Hill in St. Louis (Photograph: Mark David Major).

Share the knowledge!
Share